Along the highways running to and from bodies of water where many people tow sailboats or motorboats for recreation, it is a common sight to see boat tralers along the side of the road which have failed. The owner will tow the trailer to a recreational place where the boat on the trailer is launched. Typically, when the boat is launched from the trailer, the trailer is backed by the owner's vehicle into the water. The trailer is tipped, or the boat is released from the trailer in some other fashion. The boat then is placed in the water and is used until retrieved. Retrieval of the boat again involves backing the trailer into the water at which time the boat is winched up on to the trailer. The boat is made fast on the trailer and the owner then drives away.
It is normal for the owner to back his trailer into the water twice on each use of his boat. As a consequence, the running gear of the trailer is submerged or substantially so twice for each use of the boat. The submergence of the trailer exposes the running gear of the trailer to water penetration and consequential rust and other damage which arises from exposure to water. This is particularly damaging because the water will typically enter the bearings in the wheels of the trailer and will eventually cause the bearings to fail.
Bearing failure is noramlly a catastrophic event for a trailer owner. It typically will occur at the end of a holiday or weekend period of relaxation where the owner is returning to his home in his vehicle towing the boat mounted on the trailer. Quite often, most repair facilities are closed and indeed, the failure will typically occur out of the city where the owner dwells. When these failures occur, they are catastrophic in the sense that they prevent the owner from returning home and they force him to stop, thereby jeopardizing the boat and trailer when they must be left by the side of the road. Because of the expense and danger in leaving them at the side of the road, many efforts have been made heretofore to tow the failed trailer to a safe location. However, such tow attempts have not met with overwhelming success.
The apparatus which is disclosed herein overcomes the problems described above. That is to say, the disclosed and claimed apparatus is a structure which is intended to provide emergency aid and assistance to the owner of a failed trailer. It enables the owner to level his boat so that it is road worthy and appropriately balanced for high speed travel. Moreover, it takes the load off the failed wheel where the failure typically occurs as a result of bearing seizure. When the bearings seize, a catastrophic condition has been reached at which the bearings, the surrounding housing, the axle or shaft which supports the wheel or other equipment become extremely hot and unable to thereafter function. They sometimes become so hot that the metal looses its strength and wilts, bends, or otherwise warps. Quite often, the boat owner will find his trailer wheel folded askew where the wheel is no longer able to rotate presuming even that he can cool the wheel bearings. Sometimes, fires will occur as a result of the overheating although there is ordinarily very little structure thereby to support combustion.
The apparatus of the present invention overcomes these problems and particularly provides a booster dolly. The booster dolly enables the axle to be supported at the requisite generally horizontal posture required for high speed travel, and moreover, it lifts the load from the failed wheel bearing and wheel assembly. The wheel is lifted off the ground. Quite often, this is not even necessary because the wheel bearing assembly, on failure, will cause the wheel to fold up or even to break away from the trailer. In any case, and without regard to how the failure occurs, the booster dolly of the present invention overcomes these problems in that it is a portable dolly suitably carried by a wrecker service which can be conveniently affixed and later removed from a failed boat trailer.